The Extra Half: Passion

A session at a leading golf school is a great way to infuse passion back into your game, especially if you have to take a break from golf during cold winter months. Attending a golf school demonstrates a committment towards increasing the enjoyment you derive from golf.

How can you build your passion for golf so that you get the maximum value from your golf school investment?

Understand your value system

Why do you play golf? Here are a few reasons why people I know play:

If you never really understand why you play, how can you ever have a chance of keeping your passion consistent?

Train yourself to cater to your values

Once you understand why you play, you have the ability to provide yourself with leverage every time you go to the course or the practice range. Know what makes you passionate about golf and find an easy way to measure it, then step back and understand what trends yield positive results.

For example, I live in a northern climate and therefore every April and May is an adventure. So to keep from getting discouraged to the point where I won't want to play in the summer months, I have a rule: my stroke total doesn't count until Memorial Day. Instead, I focus on getting one good shot on every hole and maximizing how many rounds I can get in on warmer days before the end of May. By the time June rolls around, I've managed to shake off the rust and I can't wait for that 5AM Saturday alarm.

Understand positive and negative influences

I play a lot of golf as a single, and I'm frequently paired up with another twosome or threesome. I can usually tell after two holes how the round is going to go attitude-wise. There's nothing like either an uncommunicative threesome or a group which doesn't understand basic golf etiquitte, to put me on "tilt." (It's not that they are necessarily bad people - they are just playing golf with a different set of values.) As a result, I've started carrying an old MP3 player with me when I go out solo. If I get a lousy pairing, I'll have a tool to help block them out and focus on how much I'm enjoying myself.

On the other hand, I recently played with a father/son scratch pair while I was on a December weekend getaway to Florida. The son was a budding pro on a minor league circuit, and I think the father was actually a better golfer than the son. I had not touched a club in over two months until the day before, and I really felt that I was going to slow them down. Instead, I had a fantastic time because both of them were thrilled at the idea that I'd fly to Bradenton for 48 hours to get in some golf, and they understood how to be encouraging.

Stress continuous incremental improvement

In his book Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins uses the concept of compounding interest to describe how making a series of 1% improvements at something for which you have passion pays off over time. Similarly, most business process guides discuss continuous improvement as a key for success. Once you understand how to measure your passion for golf, develop a plan for making every round of golf, training session, book, or TV show generate just a fraction more passion than the round before.